Before the Happily Ever After
by Corey Lin
Summary: Set during the third season episode "Before and After" Tom Paris reacts to hearing that his best friend wants to marry his daughter


A/N: Inspired by the lines in the episode where Harry asks Tom, "How does it feel to be a grandfather?" "Better than it does to have you for a son-in-law." This jumped into my head and I actually sat down and wrote it in a little over an hour and it has sat on my hard drive for years. I was cleaning off parts of my hard drive and found this and edited it and posted.

**Before the Happily Ever After**

"I want to marry your daughter"

The words hit me like a phaser blast to the stomach. Harry had roped me into helping him realign the forward navigational sensor arrays, and I hadn't argued to much about it. To be honest with myself, I generally like to be involved in this maintenance, as I tend to be the one to notice the most if it isn't done correctly. That and the fact that since getting married I have less time to spend with my friends then I used to. Not that Kes keeps me on a short leash or anything, but when the choice comes between spending my spare timing playing pool in Sandrine's or at home with her and Linnis, it's not much of a choice.

Linnis…

I carefully put down the hyper-spanner in my hand, afraid that I might crush it and knowing that if I break another one, that damned Vulcan down in engineering will have my head,. I turn to my best friend, he has stopped working and shifted to look at me, the expression on his face deadly serious. I know what I think he said, I just need to be sure that wasn't it, have him confirm that I am just losing my mind. "Harry, what did you just say to me?"

He swallows and half turns away for a second before reconsidering and looking me straight in the eye. "You know Linnis and I have been spending a lot of time together lately." I nod. He and my daughter have always been friends, he taught her how to play pool when she was still small enough to need to stand on a chair to make her shots. He is the one who instilled in her the love of music that resulted in her incredible talent on the piano. But he is right, since she started working full time in sickbay a few months ago, the two of them have been practically inseparable, always eating meals together, spending evenings playing with the rest of the crew on the holodeck. I thought it was great the way their friendship has blossomed, she seemed so lonely there for a while, but now I'm not sure. And he's still talking. Quickly and nervously. "And you know, this has been growing for a while, and I tried to fight against it, I mean, she's my best friend's daughter, but she's so beautiful and smart and wonderful, and she loves me, and I love her, and well… We want to get married."

Okay, so maybe I'm not going crazy. The rest of the world is. "Harry, have you lost your mind?"

"Tom, you had to know this was coming." He still looks like Harry, but obviously he isn't. He must have been possessed by some alien form or something.

I make up my mind that I am not going to rant. "I knew this was coming? Of course I did! I mean what guy doesn't expect to be approached by his best friend and be told that this guy who he has always trusted and respected wants to marry his three year old. Three! She's three Harry, and you're almost 30!" Okay, maybe I'm going to rant a little.

"She's Ocampan. That makes a bit of a difference." Why didn't I ever notice before how much that dry sarcastic tone of his can make people want to smack him.

"Half-Ocampan."

"Okay, half-Ocampan." He takes a deep breath and talks very quickly, like he doesn't know how much he's going to be able to get out before I finally crack and am forced to kill him. "And I would guess that as her father you know as well as I do that the doctor said that doesn't slow down her growth, only extends her adult life. At three and a half she is the equivalent of being in her mid-twenties. She's not a child Tom, she's a grown woman."

I didn't realized how loud my voice is until I hear myself yelling while sitting in a jefferies tube. "She's not a woman. She is still a child! She's my child!" At this point I give up on the whole I'm-not-going-to-rant mantra that has been running through my head. "You have got to be out of your mind! You were there right after she was born. You changed her diapers, sang her to sleep, taught her to swim. You were the one she ran to when she was angry with me and her mom. You were practically an uncle to her and now you want to marry her? Have you gone insane?" I want to get up and start to pace, but there's no room in this damn jefferies tube, so I settle for waving my arms around wildly. He kind of shrinks back into the side of the tube like he's almost afraid of me.

But he doesn't give up. "A lot has changed. She's been my best friend for almost two years. She's grown up and was just so lonely. She was too old to play with the children, and most of the crew considered her too young to take seriously. I was the only one outside her family who was able to be there for her and I want to be there for the rest of her life. I love her."

"That is my baby you are talking about!" I can hear my voice echo in the tube and wonder if the entire engineering department is listening to us. Somehow I don't really care.

"She's not a baby. Linnis is the same age as Kes was when the two of you got married." Way to go Harry. Bring fact and reason into this and you totally destroy my stance that this can't be happening because you are insane..

"That's different." Okay. That sounded sulky. Way to argue like an adult there Tommy boy.

"Why is it different? Because this time it's your daughter?" Ouch. That hurt. "You can't expect her to stay a little girl forever. You have to let her grow up and live her own life." I think about what he says and realized that there might be a possibility that he could be right. Ah hell, I know he's right. I hate it when he's right. He is in love with my daughter, and as much as I hate to admit it, she must be in love with him too because she sent him to talk to me because she wants to marry him.

That thought echos in my head. She loves him and wants to marry him.

All of a sudden I notice how close the quarters are in this jeffries tube and the claustrophobia that I can normally keep under control is raging. My thoughts are going warp speed in my head, my best friend has lost his mind and now the damn walls decide to close in on me. Screw the sensors, I'll fix them later. I throw my tools back into their case, snap it shut and take off towards the nearest open space. "Harry, you are insane. She is insane, and the two of you are trying to make me insane. I've got to get out of here."

"Tom, wait!" I can practically hear the gears turning in his head. He wants to come after me, but needs to finish his job, he can't exactly leave the ship sitting dead in space while he chases me around trying to pull me into his twisted reality. The conflict is so obvious inside of him that it looks like it's about to blow the top of his head off. But as I climb out of the jeffries tube back into the corridor, I can see the good little Starfleet officer winning out as he relents to letting me go for now, but calling after me. "Tom, we need to talk about this!"

Damn.

I head back to my quarters like the hounds of hell are at my heels. I know I'll be alone, Kes and Linnis are both on duty in sickbay. Technically I'm off duty. I've been working split shifts at the helm to allow some of my department the chance to work with the alpha crew. It's been going on for a few weeks and I find that I really miss having my evenings at home, and that afternoons off just basically turn into afternoons working someplace other than at the helm. And apparently I've been at it too long and not been spending enough time at home if all of a sudden Harry feels that it's okay to make a run for my baby girl.

Am I angry at him? You bet your ass I'm angry. How dare he fall in love with my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I believe that he deserves to be happy, and Harry has had a long string of bad luck with women. And he's a great guy, my best friend, the best man at my wedding. But right now I just feel like I want to catch him in a deserted corridor with a phaser rifle in my hands.

Okay. Deep breath time. Where did that come from?

I'm in our quarters now, standing in the doorway of Linnis' room. I don't come in here much anymore. When she was little, it was her favorite place to play. I'd get down on my hands and knees and chase her around, pretending to be some sort of wild animal. I'd growl and snarl at her, and she would run, shrieking and laughing until her little legs would give out, then the tickle monster would attack. She was so ticklish, and she would love to romp and play. Kes used to get on me about riling her up right before bedtime, but she always had this beautiful indulgent smile on her face when we would play like that. It was because she knew just how quick it would be over.

And it was.

There is a picture on Linnis' wall of the two of us. She was only 3 months old, but about the size of a human five year old. I'm holding her and we are facing each other, both of us laughing. She was such a beautiful child. All flyaway blonde hair and bright blue eyes. We don't have a lot of pictures of her as a baby, with the exception of one of her merely hours old that Neelix managed to snap, the one I am looking at is about as young as they go. It makes me about sick to think about never being able to see her at that age again, but at that point in time the miracle was in just surviving. The miracle that was my baby girl kind of got swept aside while we just tried to make it day to day. Then all of a sudden it was over, and we were able to do our repairs, and get back to just the day to day living, enjoyment of life. But those first precious months were gone. And I knew it would be that way. I thought understood it the day that I stood up and pledged "'Til Death do we Part" to a three and a half year old, but it never really sinks in until you potty train your six week old and work on teaching your three month old to read and do simple math.

It all just went so quick, and I never realized at that time how much I missed by having it go so fast. Don't get me wrong, there are some parts of raising a daughter that I was glad to have rush by at warp 9. The weeks where she was entering adolescence and going through her equivalent of a human girls teenage years I was glad to have them fly by in what now seems to be the blink of an eye. But when it was over and I look at the young woman who emerged, so serious and so smart. I was just as much the proud papa as I was when she took her first step at just a little over a month old. She's so much like her mother it just makes my heart swell every time I look at her. She started working part time in sickbay over two years ago while she finished her studies, and just last month she passed the medical exams that Dr. Mozart set forth and earned the right to be called Dr. Paris. Wouldn't the Admiral be proud? His three year old granddaughter already a Starfleet doctor. That should be ambitious enough for even him.

Damn it. Harry is right. My baby girl is not my baby anymore. I think I can feel my own heart breaking.

A pair of arms wrapping around my waist from behind and a head laid softly against my back brings me out of my memories. Oh Kes, you always know just what I need. I turn and pull her into my arms and plant a kiss on the top of her head. I know why she's here, and am so grateful for it. Maybe she can help me understand. "You heard?" My voice doesn't even sound familiar to me.

"Harry commed me. He wanted me to talk to you before Linnis did. He doesn't want you to hurt her." How can she be so calm?

"I'm not the one that's going to hurt her." Okay, and now I've come a full circle back to sulky. At least I bypassed insane this time around. "He is entirely to old and experienced for her."

She's giving me that look that tells me that I've just said something stupid and she's going to humor me until I figure out what it is. "There's less of an age difference between the two of them than there is between the two of us. And as far as 'experienced' goes, Harry just can't compete with you at all." The hand she places on the side of my face goes a long way in taking the sting out of her words. "He's very good for her. They can be as happy together as we have been."

"How long have you known about this?" She is just way to calm to have just found out.

"About a month. I walked in and found them kissing on the couch." I don't realize just how much I have tensed up until she starts rubbing my back. "Relax Tom. You are getting way to worked up about this."

"Yeah, well that might be because it is all so sudden. I've had no time at all to even think about this. And if you've known for a month, why was I left in the dark?" Kes leads me over to the couch and sits me down. I don't know what Harry said to her when he commed her, but she's worried about me. Maybe I did get a little psychotic in that jefferies tube.

"Linnis asked me not to tell you. She was afraid it would ruin your friendship if it didn't work out."

"It still might." I may be resigned at this point, but I still reserve the right to put up a grumpy exterior.

"Oh hush. You know it won't. Harry loves her, he has nothing but the best of intentions." She sees right through me, and her voice calms me, just as it has done for so many years.

"We are talking about my little girl. There are no good intentions." I am still objecting, but I know it's pointless.

"Your little girl is a grown woman. It's time to let her live her own life." She pulls her feet up on the couch and curls into my side, her head on my shoulder. "You knew this day would come eventually."

"Harry said the same thing. And you're both right. I just didn't expect it to come so soon." I move my arm around her, pulling her in closer, rubbing her back.

"Do you regret it?" The tone in her voice surprises me.

"Never." I don't think I have ever spoken a truer word in all my life.

"I'm serious. If you had married a human girl, she would still be just a little girl."

"But she wouldn't be Linnis." I hug her tightly. "And I wouldn't have you."

"Maybe it's easier for me. I've always known just what a short time I have, and to watch her grow so quickly is normal for me. I know I've only got a few years left –"

"Kes, don't." We both know this. We just don't like to talk about it.

She is so good at getting me to talk about things I don't want to talk about. "Tom, don't back away from me here. I want to see my grandchild before I die."

I shudder at the word. "Grandchild? You've got to be kidding me."

"Linnis will approach her Elogium before too long. That's why her and Harry don't want to wait much longer. The doctor says that it will be delayed somewhat because she is half human, but he said he expects it before her fifth birthday."

"Okay, lets just file that away under 'things I don't want to talk about right now'"

She snuggles in closer. "Oh Tom. In some ways I envy you. You get the chance to see so much, do so much, but in other ways I think I am the lucky one. We knew going into this that unless something happens to you, that you would outlive me, but I never thought about you outliving your children and possibly even your grandchildren."

Speaking of things I don't want to talk about. "I've known that for a long time. And In the big picture it sounds like such a short time, but living it day to day it doesn't seem so bad. But then you get this cosmic slap up side the head that lets you know you're taking it for granted." She smiles at me, gives me a kiss then lays her head back down on my chest. "I love you so much Kes."

"I love you too." We sit in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before she asks. "Are you going to be all right with this?"

I consider her question for a moment before I answer. "I think so. Just give me a little while to get used to the idea,"

"Do I need to warn Tuvok to put an extra guard on the weapons lockers?" She loves to tease me, but I wonder if she knows how close she came to my thoughts of earlier. I look down at her and realize in surprise that she does. "I know you too well Tom." I have to laugh at that.

"So I guess we have to start thinking about a wedding?" Maybe this won't be so bad. She could do a lot worse than Harry Kim.

"I think they've pretty much thought it out. They've both got fairly sensible heads on their shoulders." I can feel her smile against my shoulder.

"She got that from you."

Contented quiet fell again. Finally I realized something. "If she's getting married, that means she's moving out. We get our quarters to ourselves again."

I love to her Kes laugh, and she does now. "It's not like she really spends that much time here now."

I maneuver us so we are laying down on the couch and give her a look so that she knows where I am going with this. "I know, but we never know when she is going to come home." She actually giggles as I lean down to kiss her. "We could walk around here naked all day if we wanted."

"That would be great until a red alert calls you to the bridge, or the doctor calls me to sickbay." Her words are muffled as she pulls my head down to kiss me.

I really love Kes' hair. The length, the curls, it's so soft. I have both of my hands buried in it, and am rapidly becoming lost in the sweetness of her mouth. Her legs are wrapped around mine and she is starting to realize why I'm excited about the concept of having our quarters all to ourselves. I don't know how long we lie there before the door slides open. I can't say exactly what happens at this point, but within microseconds I go from being comfortably occupied on the couch to being flat on my back on the floor with an aching shoulder from an intimate encounter with a coffee table and sore ribs from having my deceptively petite wife landing on top of me. And to top it off, my best friend and daughter are standing in the doorway looking at the two of us like we've each grown an extra head and trying not to let us see that they are laughing at us.

Kes disentangles herself and stands up, and I must have made some noise resembling pain when I sat up, because Linnis was at my side in an instant.

"Daddy, are you okay?"

What could I say? Not a whole lot considering my heart just melted. I had finally decided about a year ago that I would never hear the word "Daddy" out of her mouth again. She had decided that it was ridiculous for a woman of her age to still use it. Now I doubt it'll become an everyday occurrence, but it's nice to hear occasionally. I stand up and hug her, kissing the top of her head. "Yes sweetheart, everything is okay." She meets my eyes and just like her mother, can read everything I don't say in the few words that I do.

"Good."

I look up at Harry standing next to us. I let go of Linnis with one arm, slinging it over his shoulders in that casual gesture we've used for so long. "I just have one thing to say to you Harry." For some reason he looks a little nervous here. "If you ever call me Dad, I will personally escort you to the nearest airlock."

These two are something else. I don't know of anyone other than Harry that can put together something this elaborate in such a small of a period of time. It's only been two weeks since I found out about him and Linnis, and now he we are standing in the holodeck, waiting for the wedding to start. I can't believe they decided to use Sandrine's, but that's exactly where we are. Holocharacters and all. Apparently this is where they shared their first kiss. Unless he is talking about the one he gave her on her forehead when she sank her first 8 ball at 4 months old, I really didn't want to hear about it. However, we're here, in dress uniforms no doubt. Talk about a contradiction. I hate these things, but whatever makes my baby girl happy.

She looks beautiful. She decided against the dress uniform for herself, and is instead beautiful in a simple white dress. We are just about ready to walk in and head down the walkway. I refuse to call it an aisle, they may have taken out the pool table and put in extra chairs, but it's still Sandrine's and there is no aisle, just an empty space between the chairs and tables. It's a busy day for me, not only do I get to give the bride away, but I am also best man. It's a little strange, but out here on this little ship, I've seen stranger wedding rituals. But the best man part is easier. I've got my speech all ready, and the rings in my pocket. It's the giving away of my girl thing that I'm having the harder time with. And wouldn't she be mad to hear me refer to her as "my girl"? Even after four years of marriage, Kes barely tolerates me saying anything that might possibly sound possessive towards her. But I guess it's time. I'll walk her in, give her hand to Harry, then move to stand next to him. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make it clear to the speech without choking up, but I'll try. Who knows, Harry will be standing next to me, maybe I'll return the favor from my own wedding and dump a glass of champagne down the front of his dress uniform.

Then Linnis smiles at me, so beautiful and so happy, and I change my mind. For her, and for her only I can behave myself, and keep my drink to myself.

Then again, maybe not.

~finis~

Thanks for reading! This is the first new Voyager thing I've posted in years, but a new position at work that has left me with lots of time to watch DVDs and write has made me realize why I loved Voyager so much and I've actually been pulling up some really old unfinished works and have been editing and writing more.


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